


The Meaning of Life

by IvanW



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Contemplation, Established Relationship, Love, M/M, Older Characters, One-Shot, Pinto, Pinto de Mayo 2020, Romance, Wordplay is foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23729257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvanW/pseuds/IvanW
Summary: My 2020 Pinto de Mayo fic
Relationships: Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto
Comments: 22
Kudos: 39





	The Meaning of Life

Zach was on the phone a lot longer than he expected to be. It was supposed to be a short conversation. Just a quick call to Joe, to check in, make sure all was well with his brother.

But Joe liked to talk. He should have remembered that.

So while he was on the phone, walking back and forth, pacing, while Joe went on and on about something to do with their mom, the pizza guy came and went. About half the pizza disappeared while he continued on with Joe, and he began to become afraid he wasn’t going to get any of it.

He drank two and half beers too.

“Okay, well, Joe, I should probably go, and so should you.”

Joe laughed. “Trying to get rid of me?”

“Duh.” He grinned. “Half a pizza is gone, and I’m faintly buzzed.”

“Thought you gave up drinking a while ago.”

“It’s just beer. Light beer at that.”

“Okay. Fine. Say hi for me. I miss you guys. We gotta get together soon.”

“We will.”

Zach hit end call and set the phone down on the dining room table, scooping the discarded pepperoni slices left behind in the box.

“Heathen,” he muttered, good-naturedly.

He bent down to scratch three heads. Two dogs and a very fat cat. They were almost blocking the exit, well the backdoor.

He stepped over Fluffy, the cat, and sidestepped over the two dogs. Slid open the screen door and stepped outside.

He popped the pepperoni into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed them.

“Why did we get pepperoni again?”

Chris looked over his shoulder at Zach, smiled. “Because _you_ like it.”

“I don’t mind leaving it off.”

“And I don’t mind picking them off. No big deal.”

Chris was standing in the middle of their back yard, hands on his hips. He wore shorts, probably too short shorts, really, and a tank top. His favorite summer attire. He had flip flops on his feet. Cheap ones he’d gotten at the dollar store Zach didn’t know how many years ago.

His hair, mostly gray now, was blowing in the slight breeze coming into the backyard. As Zach approached him, he could smell the faint tannins of the red wine he’d drank earlier.

“What are you doing?” he asked, wrapping his arms around Chris’ middle.

“Contemplating.”

“Yeah? What? The meaning of life?”

Chris’s chest rumbled with his laugh. “Hardly.”

Zach placed a kiss on his exposed shoulder. Made a face. “Yuck. Sunscreen.”

“I burn.”

“I know. But when we go back inside, you need a shower.”

“Hmm. If you join me, we can have shower sex.”

“Is that what you’re contemplating? Me having my wicked way with you?”

“It happens too often for me to spend time contemplating that.”

Zach murmured against his ear. “You complaining?”

“Never. Although I must say it doesn’t happen quite as often as it once did.”

“Age, Pine. It even hits us, sometimes.” He kissed his ear. “So, what’s the contemplation? What to do with the garden?”

“Yeah, that. And…I don’t know. You ever think what would have happened if you and I figured things out earlier than we did?”

“You mean when we were young and hot studs in our twenties and thirties instead of well into our forties?”

Chris laughed. “Yeah. That.”

Zach turned him around, so that he faced him. He rubbed his thumb over Chris’s bristly cheek. “Thought you said it wasn’t the meaning of life.”

“Well. Not really.”

“Kind of the meaning of our lives.”

Chris stared intently at him. “Maybe. So?”

“So what? Why are we a couple of assholes who couldn’t figure out before that we were mad for each other?”

Chris smiled crookedly. “Well. Yeah.”

Zach shrugged. “I don’t know, babe. Time wasn’t right? I mean when we first met, I was still in the closet. Sort of.”

“I knew.”

“Yeah.” He kissed him. “And you were with, I don’t know, that model.”

Chris gave him a look. “Which one?”

“Which one is right.” Zach rolled his eyes. “And then I was with…”

“Groff.”

“Yeah.”

“He was never right for you.”

“I agree,” Zach said. “And then you were with another model.”

“Actress.”

“Okay. And then we, kind of, sort of, flirted…”

“You call Berlin _flirting_?”

Zach smiled. “A form of it. And neither of us was ready to commit to that level of…”

Chris nodded. “Yes.”

“And then Miles came along.”

Chris made a face. Zach laughed.

“And then the other actress.”

“Yeah,” Chris said softly.

“It just…we weren’t ready. You weren’t. I wasn’t. I don’t know, Chris.”

“I wasn’t, you mean. Mostly.”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. None of that matters now. We’re here now. Together. And happy. Together. And everyone knows and we’re just…we’re us. Right?”

Chris smiled and leaned in to kiss him. “I know. You’re right. I just, I’m sorry we wasted all that time we could have been us.”

“If it brought us here, to this moment, happy and fulfilled, and living the good life together, now, as we get older, then none of it, none of that was wasted. Life isn’t a waste, Christopher. Not ours, not before, and definitely not now. I love you. You love me. What could be better than that?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “It’s perfect.”

He turned around again in Zach’s arms, back to him, as they looked out over the yard, and the garden.

“Should we plant potatoes?” he asked.

Zach smiled, kissed his head. “Sure. Anything you want. Anything.”   
  


**Author's Note:**

> well I hope you enjoyed my 2020 Pinto de Mayo fic. Might be the last Pinto de Mayo I do, so here is.


End file.
